Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law Tuesday making it legal to notify local law enforcement when mentally disordered offenders who are patients in a state program move into a neighborhood.

Before Senate Bill 1265 officials with the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, which oversees ConRep locally, said they were prohibited from telling residents or law agencies about a house filled with their clients.

Legislators, like San Bernardino County Second District Supervisor Paul Biane and Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, pushed for the bill after a stabbing death between two ConRep patients on Jan. 8 in Upland.

Biane said there were things in state law that needed to be changed.

“(S.B. 1265) gives us one more tool to notify law enforcement where these individuals are located,” Biane said, adding that the development will provide “greater safeguards for the community.”

Seven patients from the California Department of Mental Health’s Conditional Release program were living at a house in the 300 block of South Bixby Way. They moved there in 2009.

Javier Robinson allegedly attacked and killed his roommate Chava Barrasa in the garage of the house. Robinson was found dead in March in a stolen car near the Salton Sea.

S.B. 1265, which was introduced in February, unanimously passed through the Assembly in June and the Senate in May. The law will go into effect Jan. 1.

“It is unthinkable that current law prohibits law enforcement from being notified when potentially dangerous individuals are placed in residential neighborhoods,” Dutton said in an emailed statement. “Once this bill takes effect California will be a safer place to live.”